Becki Smith lives in Margate, Kent with her husband and their 4 children Licia, Amari, Denni and Thalia. Becki has an extensive experience of entrepreneurship and her past work included working within beauty therapy and cosmetics industry. With the expansion of Becki’s own family, she decided to turn her attention to helping the parents alike bring joy to their children. In May 2016, Becki launched Kids Dream – an award winning online service that concerns with all things soft, cuddly and creative helping families cherish those precious moments with their little ones.

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THE SHOP

At Kids Dream we store a wide range of carefully selected toys and products that you will not find on your local high street. All of those are meticulously sourced and rigorously tested, often by Becki’s own little helpers, before being added to our shop. Becki is determined to only market those products that she would be happy to buy for her own family. As a result, by browsing through our website, you will be able to find a range of unique, competitively priced products that are guaranteed to bring more fun and joy to families.

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THE INSPIRATION

Becki gets a lot of her ideas for marketable products through her work and interaction with families in her local and wider communities. Becki frequently runs her pop up shop at various events while her pop up baby shower service is growing in demand. As well as promoting the business, these give Becki a valuable opportunity to interact with a variety of audiences and families that can offer a first hand advice and feedback on the products that we have on offer.

WHY SHOP WITH US

We pride ourselves on our attention to detail and commitment to providing best quality customer service to support your online shopping experience with us. The process of choosing a suitable item and placing an order on our website is easy and straight forward with free delivery service offered across the UK and EU. Gift wrapping also comes as standard on a majority of the items that we offer – a perfect combination if you are looking for a gift or a present for your little ones. Most of the items are despatched to you on the day of the purchase and we aim to ensure that your items arrive within 2-3 working days. For more information please see our reviews on Trustpilot Testimonials page and our Facebook page Kids Dream

Our complimentary gift wrapping service available for most of our items

RECOGNITION

Since its opening, Kids Dream has been highly rated and recommended by its many customers; however, the formal recognition came in summer 2017 when Kids Dream was nominated for and successfully claimed the Small Business Sundays award hosted by Theo Paphitis. Becki was more than exhilarated to be invited to meet Theo in person at Birmingham’s NEC arena where she was presented with her award.

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FAQ

Becki is always humbled by people’s interest in her work and ideas so she compiled a list of answers to the most frequently asked questions that will help you learn more about her.

How did you come up with the name for your business?

I had this idea that children would have dreams about cute, fluffy and cuddly characters and also enjoy this type of item in real life, our website is aimed at young children from birth – 7 and felt that it was important we emphasise “Kids” and then added dream, I always had this idea in mind to have a cute, sweet but quality looking business which I hope we get this point across to our customers and also having my own business has always been a bit of a dream for me too. Put all of this together and we come up with the name “Kids Dream” simple business name selection but I feel it has been quite successful with great comments about the cuteness of the name and I feel it fits with our website design and product selection too. If you type Kids Dream in to Goggle, we are one of the first websites you will see displayed, something that we are proud of and the competition isn’t too high with our name selection so finding something fairly unique was very important to us.

How did you build a following for your website?

I have worked very hard to grow our organic traffic through offering the best customer service I can, gaining a following on Social media has been crucial, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. I am a very friendly person, enjoy meeting new people and my partner will tell you.. I love to talk. I really enjoy engaging with customers, respond to queries in a timely manner and offer as much support as possible to help assist. Over the nearly three years of Kids Dream existence I have worked very hard on all areas of our business, to gain trust, receive wonderful feedback from our customers which means so much to us as each and every one of you are so important to the growth of Kids Dream and we couldn’t do it without you.

On what platform do you host your website?

We chose EKMpowershop at the time I knew less was about their company comparing to the likes of Shopify but following a successful trial I was very happy. They started in 2002 by a Man called Anthony Chesworth, who started this now multi-million pound business from his bedroom in the UK. He is an amazing inspiration to all business owners and has a hugely successful presence on the internet with his blogs and videos. He really cares about all his customers and will even respond to any queries directly. I cannot sing EKM praises enough. His company and all of his wonderful staff have been amazing with their support with Kids Dream.

Who takes the pictures of your products?

We have a photography company who have taken a few shots to help market our pop up baby shop service but other than that it is something I am very interested in and take most of our own photos, I feel I have learnt a lot about photography as time has progressed and I would hope that our customers can see the improvement from the journey from Kids Dream starting in 2016 until present.

May I use your photographs on my site?

Kids Dream images are covered by copyright so we ask people to not use images or text from our website unless we have discussed this prior to you using anything at Kids Dream. We work very hard to create our own unique content and images, having something taken from our webpage or social media is not allowed without permission.

I want to start an online business, any tips?

My suggestion to any one who would like to start their own business, which I know can be a very scary process, starting something from scratch and working, often very long hours and the feeling of being on a roller coaster, as you will have your good days and bad days, I wouldn’t change anything about running my business which started from home around my four young children. Have the confidence and drive to succeed as any online businesses do struggle in the first few years as it is such a competitive market, such as retail but the rewards of your hard work will begin to pay off and that feeling of creating something wonderful will over rule everything else.

I want to work with your business, are you open to that?

Yes I am always open to business discussions regarding collaboration, contact me any time if you would be interested, I love to talk business as it is something I am very passionate about. Even if it is support you would like, any questions you would like me to answer, or simply support! I am happy to hear from you all.

How do you manage to combine a busy family life with running a business?

This is something that has always been a challenge, often feeling guilty when I have to respond to customers queries when I am cooking dinner or later of an evening when it is bed time. All business owners with a young family I am sure they will agree, family has to come first but also I work nearly 24 hours a day so when my 4th child was a new born I was up all night on and off, so responding to customers queries in the middle of the night was normal. Now she has grown up a little bit (turning 3 in June) I normally respond to customers queries until 12am as I have become a bit of a night owl of late. This is how important our customers are to us, we pride ourselves offering a great service and this includes everything from answering to queries in a timely manner, dispatching items within 1-2 days, making sure we respond to our customers who takes the time to review our business and offering a complimentary gift wrapping service. This is all something I am hugely proud of and managing a young family too, sometimes I feel like I need an extra few pair of hands but I manage. Our children love Kids Dream, especially when they get to test our new toys before they are added to the website. I feel it is great for the children to see how hard Mummy works and that it is also for their future and financial stability.

What is the ideal day out for you and your family?

In the summer the children love the beach and now we have a property in the Midlands, which enables us to grow Kids Dream in a different part of the country, we all love visiting new towns and attractions so the children never get bored! I feel having this time is very important as I do not work a 9-5 job but what is has made possible is being at home most of the time and being able to work around our young family.

Do you have any hobbies?

I would say I love keeping fit but that has gone a little out of the window since my fourth child was born, I am just too busy to enjoy the things I once loved, now I would say drinking coffee and eating lots of chocolate to get through the day. Seriously I have learnt a lot about myself since starting Kids Dream, there are things I enjoy now that I perhaps would never have realised. I have a particular interest and passion with photography.

What’s your favourite food?

Without a doubt I am a self confessed chocoholic but also I do love sausage, mash and peas but not forgetting roast chicken and vegetables yummy!

What is your favourite movie?

I can’t say I am a huge fan of movies to be honest but I do love a film based on a true story, our latest movie my partner and I enjoyed was Bohemian Rhapsody, probably the first film I have watched in over two years so if any one asks me a question about films I am useless, but if the ask me about SEO or website design, I may know a thing or two.